While incidents of children falling into uncovered borewells is on the rise, Anantapur district did not witness such cases in the past few years, more due to luck than prevention.
The district has more than four lakh borewells, one of highest densities in the State, but hasn’t reported any cases of children losing lives after falling into borewells, giving rise to an interesting question as to how such a situation has arisen.
Every year, the government spends ₹20 crore on drilling and deepening borewells, adding to the already existing ones and the many illegal borewells that are sunk everyday in the district.
“One reason could be that not many children venture into the fields, which is the primary location of these borewells, whether they be covered or uncovered, as they are either at school or have migrated along with their parents to cities. Even those left behind have not much reason to go to their fields as most have become rain-dependant from the once borewell dependent”, said Govindarajulu, former District Revenue Officer.
He says the fact that not more than 10% of all borewells in the district remain functional and that most of the dysfunctional ones remain uncovered is unacceptable. “Someday, an accident can happen and, in fact, several such can happen in tandem given the density of uncovered borewells. The government needs to take a one-off decision and invest in closing such borewells immediately thereby preventing any accident,” opined Mr. Govindarajulu.
Meanwhile, the Rural Water Supply (RWS) officials, who drill most of the borewells in the district, say all such failed or dysfunctional borewells were being covered, thereby ensuring an almost zero incidence of deaths from uncovered borewells.
“We ensure that all borewells are covered either by a motor drawing the water from it or with proper coverings to prevent it from being open”, said Hare Ram Naik, Superintending Engineer of RWS